Fix You
by clouisewise
Summary: Buffy isn't sure how, but she's knows that she has to do something to help her best friend.


**Author's Note**: I would suggest listening to Fix You by Coldplay when you read this; this fic is loosely based off of the song. :) I apologize if this seems a little off, it was a request that I just couldn't turn down the challenge to. Takes place in Season 7, after Willow comes back but before the arrival of the potentials.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own anything! I wish I did, but Mr. Joss Whedon has the divine privilege.

I'll never get used to how hungry patrol makes me. I mean, it's been seven years and I still drool as I walk the trail leading to the back door of my house. Opening and closing the door carefully, not wanting to wake up my housemates, I walk in and go straight to the fridge. There has been a slice of leftover pizza that I have had my eye on sin-

"Early night, Buff?"

I spin around quickly to see a pajama-clad Willow leaning against the kitchen island opposite to me, slowly sipping on a cup of hot cocoa.

"Oh god Willow, I didn't see you there," I say, letting out the breath I was holding and putting the stake I was clinging to back into my pocket. With all this 'from beneath you it devours' nonsense, I can't be too careful. "Seems there just isn't that much action going on out there tonight."

She smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. Not sure if I should say anything else I spin around to open the fridge; the light that floods the room reveals the dried tear streaks that remain on her face. Ignoring my pizza, I shut the fridge again and join her on the opposite side on the kitchen.

"Willow..."

Willow has had it rough the past few weeks. From the moment she returned from England, things have been rough for her – for example, I'm sure that being invisible was not the way she had planned on spending her homecoming. She's been withdrawn, avoiding the rest of us. Xander has tried so hard to get her to just do normal things, like go out to The Bronze with us or even just come downstairs and watch a movie with the gang. Even go with him to Tara's grave. Or go see Willow's parents. It's been pretty impossible, though. The only time she's really left her room in the past week is at night, long after everyone has gone to bed. I'll come home from patrol and she'll be in the kitchen or the living room, reading a book or more often just... sitting. Being. I never catch her crying but I can always tell that she has been.

"Aren't you tired, Will?"

She chuckles, "I'm exhausted. But I just can't sleep. Figured I would come down here a-and get some cocoa."

"You should try to get some sleep", I say in my best concerned voice, "it's been a few nights since you have and I am sure you could use it. How ab-"

"I can't sleep in that room anymore," she says quietly. "Not... not after everything. It's too soon. It's too 'the same'. I try, I really do. But I lay down, right? I lay down and I feel like something is missing. Something that I can't replace. Something that I'll never get back."

A single tear falls down her cheek and she quietly apologizes. I pull her into a hug, knowing that there isn't much that I could say to make it better.

There's nothing I could say to make Tara come back.

"Willow. I'm so sorry."

She shrugs and wipes her face with the back of her hand, the tears falling a little more quickly now.

"Why don't you come into my room tonight, Willow? You know how much I love slumber patries."

"I-I... I appreciate it Buffy, I really do, but I feel like... like I should be feeling this way, you know? Like feeling this way is what I am supposed to feel a-and if I skip this feeling just to feel a little bit better than I'm doing something wrong. To her."

"She wouldn't want you to feel this way," I say, placing my hands on either side of her face. "She loved you so much, Will, and she knows that you loved her too. You don't have to let her go. No one would ask you to do that. But you _do_ have to live. And you _do_ have to sleep in order to do that."

The redhair smiles softly through her tears and runs her fingers through her hair. She doesn't speak but simply nods and allows me to lead her out of the kitchen, and up into my bedroom. I change and settle into the bed next to her. The silence is deafening, and I can tell by her breathing that she isn't asleep.

"Buffy?"

"Yeah, Will?"

"Do you think that I can be fixed?"

My heart breaks at how sad she sounds, the desperation dripping off of the words. I roll over and pull my best friend close, gently kissing the top of her head.

"You're not broken, Will."


End file.
